The Diwali shopping hub of Chennaiites 15/11/2012

The spirits of Chennaiites always light up much before the festival of Lights dawns as they make a beeline to the shopping hub, which still remains T.Nagar. For the first time I along with my husband ventured stepping into this much crowded ‘Manchester of Madras’ more to get an insight into the mind of women and the basis on which they decide buying sarees for the occasion.

I for one always hesitated to enter Pothys, not being adventurous enough to brave the crowds from all over the world that patronize the Shop. Therefore, when their new 12 storied complex opened recently, we jumped at the opportunity of checking it out. We were totally taken by surprise finding people commuting through escalators and soon joined them getting on and getting off each floor. While I was looking around at the collection, my husband preferred to sit and watch what was happening around and was amused at what he saw and heard. It appeared an elderly gentleman took the seat beside him even as he was keeping an eye on his little grand daughter who was running excitedly all over the place and warning her not to go out of his sight. Quite irritated at frequently being admonished, she said in Tamil, ‘look at that thatha, he is so well behaved sitting quietly, unlike you. You keep on saying, don’t go there, don’t touch the sarees.’

We next headed to Nallis and Kumarans expecting to be jostled by large crowds but were quite disappointed at what we saw. On our way back,we noticed there were milling crowds at Pothys (old), Saravana Stores and RMKV and felt these had their loyalists irrespective of the appearance of new and posh outlets. The reason perhaps is also the wide choice that was available combined by a reasonable price charged compared to the rest of the shops situated in the area. When I expressed this to the auto driver, he said, ‘yes, amma, lot of women visited the new Pothys but preferred shopping at the old one.’